For all his VX1000 grit, O’Dell brings reverence for skateboard royalty when it’s called for, so I’m guessing it’ll be somewhere in the middle, i.e. long on career highlights, some good stories, probably more humor than we’re used to with Gino Iannucci. It might be interesting if they got real into his personal demons, be they liquid, powder or sheer lethargy, I guess. There’ll probably be a couple episodes on Keenan Milton.

With 10 episodes we’re in for a long ride either way, and it’s probably not out of the question for Nike or Chocolate to issue the thing as a career retrospecticus the way Vans did with Cardiel. However, I’m guessing there won’t be a whole lot in the way of hope for another video part or anything. Shit, the dude said as much in the preview, right?

As far as I see it, our only real hope for any substantial Gino comeback lies with Guy Mariano, who put dude’s name at the top of his skate-buddy wish list on 48Blocks a while back. As far as reunions go, such a thing possibly would surpass Muska’s tracking down of Tom Penny in Europe on that one Circa tour… back when Muska enjoyed Fab Four levels of fandom, Rattray still skated for Blueprint and Chris Cole’s pants flapped freely in the wind. You may remember this era from the TWS video “Videoradio”, the one where they managed to lose 2/3 of the footage on the flight home. But I digress.

I mean, if ever there was a dude with carte blanche to milk his career in skateboarding, it’s Guy Mariano, and now that Guy is back, the sheer cocktease potential of a Gino Iannucci comeback would allow him to put out like two tricks a year and be good for another decade, easy. There’s kids who seriously look back fondly on his part in “Hot Chocolate” and marvel. So he doesn’t gotta do much. More stuff like the Nike video would be fine. You’d imagine that he could use the paychecks. Even though he just reopened his Poets shop in Long Island, the skate shop business generally is not the velvet goldmine the Zumiez 100k club might lead you to believe.

So while I’m looking forward to the trip down memory lane and all the old LA footage and everything, what I really hope is that this Epicly Later’d answers this question in some way. Although maybe that’s the point, that the man himself doesn’t know if he has a comeback in him. All I’m saying: a couple tricks a year. A nollie cab switch backside tailslide here and there. We don’t need much, you know?

Ahhh the Zumiez 100K Club. I went on one of those trips. That company is truly fucked. I’ve seen it from the inside. While the 100K trip is definitely a good time, it’s only if you do the things you’re not supposed to do that it’s actually fun. Like bring your own large bottle of whiskey in your carry-on bag(this was before the no-liquid rule), and somehow wind up banging the hot asian 19-year old that works for you. If that doesn’t happen, the trip is pretty much whatever. At least that’s what I hear.

You should see the multitude of pros they pay to be at this 100K event. We’re talking D.Way, Most of the Flip team, Greco, Ellington, Rob AND Big, Koston, Howard, Mariano, pretty much the super pros. And the funny thing is there’s no skateboarding at this event. Just snowboarding.